Arizona Democrats Take Full Control of State Government

Democrats won both chambers of the Arizona Legislature and retained the governor’s office, placing the state’s executive and legislative power under one party for the first time since 1966. The Associated Press called enough legislative races Friday to confirm Democrats had flipped the House and Senate. Arizona’s political apparatus has changed hands; the system of party rule remains.

Who Holds the State’s Power

Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs will lead a unified state government. During her first term, she vetoed more than 540 measures passed by the Republican-led Legislature, including measures concerning taxes, immigration and voting laws. The figure shows the scale of the standoff between two parties competing to direct the same institutions—and the power a governor has to block measures passed by the legislature.

Hobbs has said she wants to address water issues and affordability, and tackle fraud and abuse in the state’s school voucher program. Those are priorities she has named for a government now controlled by Democrats. The article does not describe a community-led response to those issues or any direct action outside the state’s political institutions.

Republicans had held the Arizona House for 60 years and the Senate since the early 1990s. The shift gives Democrats control of both chambers, ending that long stretch of Republican control in the House. For people affected by decisions on taxes, immigration, voting laws, water and school vouchers, the governing party has changed; the decisions still pass through state institutions.

The AP said races can take several days to call after voting, depending on the speed of ballot counting and the closeness of contests. There were no major disputes or disruptions this year. The result arrived through the ballot-counting process, not through any grassroots organizing or mutual-aid effort described in the report.

A Wider Party Turnover

Democrats gained full control of both legislative chambers and governors’ offices in at least six states where they had previously shared power with Republicans: Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Wisconsin. Across those states, the election shifted who controls government institutions; the report does not describe a transfer of authority to workers, neighborhoods or other self-organized groups.

Democrats also won control of the Texas House, which Republicans had held since 2003, and elected Gina Hinojosa as Texas’ first Democratic governor since George W. Bush defeated Ann Richards in 1994. Republicans retained the Texas Senate. The split leaves the two parties sharing control of Texas state government, rather than placing both legislative chambers and the governor’s office under one party.

Democrats flipped the lower legislative chambers in Maine and North Carolina and both chambers in New Hampshire, where Republican Kelly Ayotte was reelected. Results in additional states were still being counted. The election’s outcome therefore remained unsettled in some places even as party control shifted elsewhere.

The Machinery Keeps Running

The National Council of State Legislatures said the election was likely to produce the most legislative seats and chambers changing party control since the 2010 election, when Republicans took over governments across the country during the Great Recession. Democrats were set to hold governors’ offices in at least 28 states, with results pending in Alaska and Kansas.

These are substantial changes inside the machinery of government: seats and chambers changing party control, governors’ offices moving between parties, and legislative majorities being recast. The report offers no account of direct action, mutual aid, or self-organized alternatives alongside the election results. Arizona’s new unified government will now exercise the authority its institutions already hold.